The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley

“Ladies,” he said, with a bow and air of maudlin humility, “I have to apologise for requiring you to start out on a journey at such a late hour. Duty is often an ungracious master. Luckily, your drive is not to be a very extended one – only to the city; and you’ll have company in the carriage. The Doña Luisa will find her father at home.”

Neither vouchsafed rejoinder – not a word – scarce giving him the grace of a look. Which a little nettling him, his smooth tone changed to asperity, as addressing himself to the soldier, he gave the abrupt order:

“Cabo! take them on to the carriage.”

On they were taken; as they approached it, perceiving a face inside, pale as the moonbeams that played upon it. It was a very picture of dejection; for never had Don Ignacio Valverde experienced misery such as he felt now.

“’Tis you, father!” said his daughter, springing up, throwing her arms around him, and showering kisses where tears already trickled. “You a prisoner, too!”

“Ay, nina mia. But sit down. Don’t be alarmed! It will all come right. Heaven will have mercy on us, if men do not. Sit down, Luisa!”

She sat down mechanically, the Countess by her side; and the door was banged to behind them. Meanwhile, Pepita, who insisted on accompanying her mistress, had been handed up to the box by a cochero strange to her; one of the soldiers, pressed into the service for the occasion, a quondam “jarvey,” who understood the handling of horses as every Mexican does.

All were now ready for the road; the dismounted Hussars had vaulted into their saddles, the “march” was commanded, and the driver had drawn his whip to lay it on his horses, when the animals jibbed, rearing up, and snorting in affright!

No wonder, with such an object suddenly coming under their eyes. An oddly-shaped creature that came scrambling in through the saguan, and made stop beneath their very noses. A human being withal; who, soon as entering, called out, in a clear voice, – “Where is the Colonel?”

Chapter Sixty

“Surrender!”

If the carriage horses were startled by the apparition, no less so were the Hussars formed round. Equally frightened these, though not from the same cause. The hunchback – for it was he – had become a familiar sight to them; but not agitated as he appeared to be now. He was panting for breath, barely able to gasp out the interrogation, “Adone ’stael Coronel?”

His distraught air and the tone told of some threatening danger.

“Here!” called out Santander, springing his horse a length or two forward, “What is it, sirrah?”

“The enemy, S’nor Colonel,” responded the dwarf, sliding close in to the stirrup.

“Enemy! What enemy?”

“Them we missed catching – Don Ruperto, the Irlandes, the big Tejano.”

“Ha! – They! – Where?”

“Close by, S’nor. I saw them round a great camp-fire up in the mountains. They’re not there now. I came on to tell you. I ran as fast as ever I was able, but they’ve been following. I could hear the tramp of their horses behind all the way. They must be near at hand now. Hark!”

“Patria y Libertad!”

The cry came from without, in the tone of a charging shibboleth, other voices adding, “Mueran los tyrannos!”

Instantaneously succeeded by the cracking of carbines, with shouts, and the clash of steel against steel – the sounds of a hand-to-hand fight, which the stamping and snorting of horses proclaimed between cavalry.

Never was conflict of shorter duration; over almost before they in the courtyard could realise its having commenced. The confused sounds of the mêlée lasted barely a minute when a loud huzza, drowning the hoof-strokes of the retreating horses, told that victory had declared itself for one side or the other. They who listened were not long in doubt as to which sent up that triumphant cheer. Through the front gate, standing open, burst a mass of mounted men, some carrying lances couched for the thrust, others with drawn sabres, many of their blades dripping blood. On came they into the courtyard, still vociferating: “Mueran los tyrannos!” while he at their head, soon as showing himself, called out in a commanding voice, “Rendite?”

By this a change had taken place in the tableau of figures beside the carriage. The Hussars having reined back, had gathered in a ruck around their colonel, irresolute how to act. Equally unresolved he to order them. That cry, “Country and Liberty,” had struck terror to his heart; and now seeing those it came from, recognising the three who rode foremost – as in the clear moonlight he could – the blood of the craven ran cold. They were the men he had subjected to insult, direct degradation; and he need look for no mercy at their hands. With a spark of manhood, even such as despair sometimes inspires, he would have shown fight. Major Ramirez would, and did; for at the first alarm he had galloped out to the gate and there met death.

Not so Santander, who, although he had taken his sword out of its scabbard, made no attempt to use it, but sat shivering in his saddle, as if the weapon was about to drop from his hand.

On the instant after a blade more firmly held, and better wielded, flashed before his eyes; he who held it, as he sprung his horse up, crying out:

“Carlos Santander! your hour has come! Scoundrel! This time I intend killing you.”

Even the insulting threat stung him not to resistance. Never shone moonlight on more of a poltroon, the glitter and grandeur of his warlike dress in striking contrast with his cowardly mien.

“Miserable wretch!” cried Kearney – for it was he who confronted him – “I don’t want to kill you in cold blood Heaven forbid my doing murder. Defend yourself.”

“He defend hisself!” scornfully exclaimed a voice – that of Cris Rock. “He dassen’t as much as do that. He hasn’t the steel shirt on now.”

Yet another voice at this moment made itself heard, as a figure, feminine, became added to the group. Luisa Valverde it was, who, rushing out of the carriage and across the courtyard, cried out —

“Spare his life, Don Florencio. He’s not worthy of your sword.”

“You’re right thar, young lady,” endorsed the Texan, answering for Kearney. “That he ain’t – an’ bare worth the bit o’ lead that’s inside o’ this ole pistol. For all, I’ll make him a present o’ ’t – thar, dang ye.”

The last words were accompanied by a flash and a crack, causing Santander’s horse to shy and rear up. When the fore hoofs of the animal returned to the flags, they but missed coming down upon the body of its rider, now lying lifeless along them.

“That’s gin him his quieetus, I reckin,” observed Rock, as he glanced down at the dead man, whose face upturned had the full moonlight upon it, showing handsome features, that withal were forbidding in life, but now more so in the ghastly pallor of death.

No one stayed to gaze upon them, least of all the Texan, who had yet another life to take, as he deemed in the strict execution of duty and satisfaction of justice. For it too was forfeit by the basest betrayal. The soldiers were out of their saddles now, prisoners all; having surrendered without striking a blow. But crouching away in a shadowy corner was that thing of deformity, who, from his diminutive size, might well have escaped observation. He did not, however. The Texan had his eyes on him all the while, having caught a glimpse of him as they were riding in at the gate. And in those eyes now gleamed a light of a vengeance not to be allayed save by a life sacrificed. If Santander on seeing Kearney believed his hour was come, so did the dwarf as he saw Cris Rock striding towards him. Caught by the collar, and dragged out into the light, he knew death was near now.

In vain his protestations and piteous appeals. Spite of all, he had to die. And a death so unlike that usually meted out to criminals, as he himself to the commonality of men. No weapon was employed in putting an end to him: neither gun nor pistol, sword nor knife. Letting go hold of his collar, the Texan grasped him around the ankles, and with a brandish raising him aloft, brought his head down upon the pavement. There was a crash as the breaking of a cocoa-nut shell by a hammer; and when Rock let go, the mass of mis-shapen humanity dropped in a dollop upon the flags, arms and legs limp and motionless, in the last not even the power left for a spasmodic kick.

“Ye know, Cap,” said the Texan, justifying himself to Kearney, “I’d be the last man to do a cruel thing. But to rid the world o’ sech varmint as them, ’cording to my way o’ thinking, air the purest hewmanity.”

A doctrine which the young Irishman was not disposed to dispute just at that time, being otherwise and better occupied, holding soft hands in his, words exchanging with sweet lips, not unaccompanied by kisses. Near at hand Don Ruperto was doing the same, his vis-à-vis being the Condesa.

But these moments of bliss were brief – had need be. The raid of the Free Lances down to San Augustin was a thing of risk, only to have been attempted by lovers who believed their loved ones were in deadly danger. In another hour or less, the Hussars who had escaped would report themselves at San Angel and Chapultepec – then there would be a rush of thousands in the direction of Tlalpam.

So there was in reality – soldiers of all arms, “horse, foot, and dragoons.” But on arrival there they found the house of Don Ignacio Valverde untenanted; even the domestics had gone out of it; the carriage, too, which has played such an important part in our tale, along with the noble frisones. The horses had not been taken out of it, nor any change made in the company it carried off. Only in the driver, the direction, and cortège. José again held the reins, heading his horses up the mountain road, instead of towards Mexico; while, in place of Colonel Santander’s Hussars, the Free Lances of Captain Ruperto Rivas now formed a more friendly escort.

Chapter Sixty One

Conclusion

About a month after in San Augustin a small two-masted vessel – a goleta – might have been observed standing on tacks off the coast of Oaxaca, as if working against the land wind to make to the mouth of Rio Tecoyama – a stream which runs into the Pacific near the south-western corner of that State. Only sharp eyes could have seen the schooner; for it was night, and the night was a very dark one. There were eyes sharply on the lookout for her, however, anxiously scanning the horizon to leeward, some of them through glasses. On an elevated spot among the mangroves, by the river’s mouth, a party was assembled, in all about a score individuals. They were mostly men, though not exclusively; three female figures being distinguishable, as forming part of the group. Two of them had the air, and wore the dress, of ladies, somewhat torn and travel-stained; the third was in the guise of a maid-servant attending them. They were the Condesa Almonté the Don Luisa Valverde, and her ever faithful Pepita.

Among the men were six with whom the reader has acquaintance. Don Ignacio, Kearney, Rock, Rivas, José, and he who had been major-domo in the old monastery, baptismally named Gregorio. Most of the others, undescribed, had also spent some time in the establishment with the monks while playing the part of Free Lances. They were, in fact, a remnant of the band – now broken up and dispersed.

But why! When last seen it looked as though their day of triumph had come, or was at all events near. So would it have been but for a betrayal, through which the pronunciamento had miscarried, or rather did not come off. The Dictator, well informed about it – further warned by what occurred at San Augustin – had poured troops over the Sierras into Oaxaca in force sufficient to awe the leaders of the intended insurrection. It was but by the breadth of a hair that his late Cabinet Minister, and those who accompanied him, were able to escape to the sequestered spot where we find them on the shore of the South Sea. To Alvarez, chief of the Pintos, or “spotted Indians,” were they indebted for safe conduct thither; he himself having adroitly kept clear of all compromise consequent on that grito unraised. Furthermore, he had promised to provide them with a vessel in which they might escape out of the country; and it was for this they were now on the lookout.

When Ruperto Rivas, gazing through that same telescope he had given Florence Kearney to make survey of the valley of Mexico, cried out, “La goleta!” every eye around him brightened, every heart beat joyously.

Still more rejoiced were they when, after an hour’s tacking against the land breeze, the goleta got inside the estuary of the stream, and working up, brought to by the edge of the mangroves.

Unencumbered with heavy baggage, they were all soon aboard, and in three days after debarked at the port of Panama. Thence crossing the Isthmus to Chagres, another sea-going craft carried them on to the city, where they need no longer live in fear of Mexico’s despot.

Back to his old quarters in New Orleans had Don Ignacio repaired; again under the ban of proscription, his estates sequestrated as before. So, too, those of the Condesa Almonté.